by Will Henry
Stoll looked around the courtroom, and the stillness closed in on me. It was smothering quiet.
"In their duty," he continued, "the officers lay flat upon a buffalo robe spread behind the locked door of the room standing vacant next the marshal's office. To facilitate their precise hearing of each word spoken by Marshal LeFors and defendant Horn, a two-inch cut had previously been taken from the bottom of the subject door."
Again Stoll ran his eyes over the packed room, whetting the knife of silence that now hung over me, his victim. He waited, like he was watching the blade turn.
"Recorder Ohnhaus," he went on, "employed a soft Dixon number five lead pencil for his transcribing of the exchange, a simple precaution to prevent defendant hearing the scratch or scrape of firmer instrument."
The deadly droning voice of Walter Stoll paused the third time. The prosecutor stared over at me for what seemed far too long a spell, then concluded abruptly.
"If it please the court," the little prosecutor said, "Marshal LeFors will retain a copy, the clerk shall have one, and a third be supplied His Honor."
Judge Becker only rapped his gavel. "Proceed," he said.
I crouched forward. Somehow I knew it. I had been betrayed. And betrayed beyond any sense or intended meaning of what I had told Joe LeFors in his office. I knew it as I sat there stunned. I already knew what LeFors had done to me. It was like an Apache vision seer trancing the future. I saw it coming.
And it came that way.
What the clerk then read to a courtroom hushed as the Willie Nickell funeral parlor was every word about the killing of little Willie that Joe LeFors had drug from me, put into my mouth, or tricked me into saying, that would sound like I had confessed the crime.
What the clerk did not read to that pin-still courtroom was one word of all the things I said to the marshal denying any knowledge of the killing and repeatedly complaining about him trying to twist what I said to make it sound like Tom Horn had done the job.
And the reason the clerk didn't read those words of my innocence was that they weren't there to read.
Joe LeFors had curried out of all I'd said only what he had wanted me to say; the rest of it was gone.
Yet the cunning devil had me boxed. I had said what was there that he claimed I said. I could never deny that. But, God Amighty, where was the rest of it? The parts that had me denying what he wanted me to say, the places where I flat-out declared my innocence?
They weren't there. My God, they had taken them out
Charley Ohnhaus, once my friend, how could that be?
Les Snow, you dirty bastard, you yellow coward.
And you, Joe. You, Joe LeFors. You know I didn't do it. And you know who did do it. Why have you trapped me like this, the three of you? You have to know, you all have to know, that Tom Horn didn't kill little Willie Nickell.
While my mind panicked in this desperate way, the spectators broke into a beehive of buzzing.
"Order! Order in the court!" the bailiff bawled.
"I will clear this court if order is not restored!" appended Judge Becker. "Bailiff, clear the court—!"
But the people and all the eastern reporters got quiet then, and Becker eased back on the bench and the bailiff holstered his stick. Nobody wanted to and nobody was going to leave that room, and my attorneys not yet heard from. Let alone to mention me, Tom Horn.
Well it had taken thirty minutes for the "confession" to be read, what with running interruptions of "object!" from my lawyers, all ruled down by His Honor, sustaining Walter Stoll in every ruling, not one "objection sustained" ringing down off the bench to bolster me or what now looked like my lost cause, in all the agony and drug-out rottenness of that half hour "for the people."
Lacey and Burke did their high-priced best.
They told my side of the "confession" being rigged or, in their language, "subornation of perjury." As well, when that failed, they went to "conspiracy to deprive," in this case, God forbid it might come to that, to deprive an innocent man of his life! But Prosecutor Stoll was the darling of that day, as all the days that followed. I lost my plea to disqualify the confession.
With that ruling, the reporters run for their telephones and Western Union wires. They knew, like the dumbest cowboy in the courtroom, that if that "barbered" confession stood up, Tom Horn would hang.
My trial was set for May, postponed till October, 1902.
The twenty-third of that month, the jury came in. They weren't out but a few hours. And didn't need to be. There was over half of them on that jury men I had taken to court for cow thieving! But nobody bothered to bring that fact forward. "How find you?" was all trial judge Scott said then and "Guilty, Your Honor," answered the jury foreman. And
Judge Scott read the sentence: "You will be hanged by the neck until dead between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on January 9, 1903." The bobtailed confession had stood.
On December 31, 1902, my attorneys won a stay of execution until the Supreme Court of Wyoming could hear and determine on the case. The lawyers told me this meant I had at least six more months of life. The good news left me moody and unsure. I turnt extremely hunchy about the entire situation. Yet Johnny Coble and the others assured me it was a victory. They said the people outside were going about the streets saying, "Goddamn it, I told you so. Now the son of a bitch will get off!" I might even get a new trial out of the stay, they said, a practically certain guarantee I would go free. Cheer up, Tom. The worst is over. Six months will make it June. A glorious time to be out and riding the open grass again. It will be tough staying shut in, but what the hell? It's winter.
I thanked my people. But I knew better.
My trial had already cost the cattlemen backing me the best part of a third of a million dollars. According to the best estimate of the Cheyenne Daily Leader, the total would run over half a million before it was done with. God alone knew how much the state of Wyoming had so far spent. It was a great chunk of money surely.
I wasn't any attorney but could always balance a column of figures.
When a man added what I had cost the cattlemen to what I had cost the state of Wyoming, the answer was plain easy. Neither side could stand a new trial for Tom Horn.Both was near broke. Who was there left to foot the damn bill? Who could pay off everything for both sides?
The answer turned my mind dark.
It had to be me, Tom Horn.
When the year turned, I asked to see Johnny Coble.
"I want a new lawyer," I told him. "Somebody who don't owe a dime to the Wyoming Stock Growers, or a nickel to the Cattleman's Bank of Cheyenne. He will need to be a young man to fit such clothes, I know. But my sombra is telling me the others have backed off from us."
"You and that sombra of yours, Tom! Lacey has been brilliant for you. Burke, too. And all the rest."
"No, Johnny, it won't wash," I said. "Get me a young feller clean of the whole thing. And I'd better have him quick, for I am thinking some desperate things."
"Tom, for God's sake don't do anything rash!"
"How about that new man?"
"All right; I will look around. Quiet down, Tom."
"You needn't fear for my nerve," I answered. "You, nor the others."
"I know that, Tom. I only meant be careful until I can find us this new man for you. Keep your own counsel until that time."
"That is just what I am aiming to do from right here and now," I called after him. "Be careful your ownself."
He came late that afternoon to my cell. He was young, like I'd asked, and new. I'd never seen him on the street, nor in the court. He was skinny as a mustang catch colt, quick as a fox after a field mouse, but not nervous nor looking over his shoulder in any way.
"I am A. W. Rowells," he said. "Let's talk."
By "let's," he meant me; I spilled over on him like a broke-free logjam, and he just let me rip till I'd slowed down and spread out over the flats.
"All right," he said, "you've asked me and I will tell you. No, you are not
wrong. It is my opinion the interests behind you cannot longer afford to defend you in face of the growing temper of the people. Things are changing in this country. The cattle companies are feeling this change. Fighting it, too, yes. But the kings are going, Tom Horn. Their empires are threatened on all sides and from the insides as well. You may quite possibly be the last knight errant of the western plains. But that won't save you."
"What will then, lawyer Rowells?"
"I am not certain, Horn. There has not been time for me to think the problem out. I have kept current with the trial, but the personal factor of the defendant Tom Horn is quite another thing altogether. I assume you asked for another attorney to put the question to him in your own terms and privately."
"Yes, that was my reason."
"Do you now feel able to trust me in that capacity?"
"What capacity do you mean?"
"That of your confidant."
"Well, lawyer Rowells, I got to trust somebody. If I had a better horse, I would saddle the son of a bitch."
He laughed. It was quick and barky but true. "Horn, we are going to do," he said. "Screw down your hull."
It was a rodeo term meaning to tighten your saddle for bronc riding, and I knew from that that I had me a western lawyer and one as good as I might find.
"All right, sir," I said. "My question is single and simple-minded, just like me. What are my legal chances from this place in the road; I mean to get off from this thing and to go free?"
"You have two chances that I see, Horn." He was immediate with it, sharp as the ring of a snapping trap. "Small, and none at all."
"Toss a coin on the two, lawyer."
"You have no chance."
"That means no legal chance. The law ain't going to turn me loose. I was right to call you in."
A. W. Rowells walked about the cell a bit, hands knotted over his backside the same way the pictures show of Abe Lincoln. Matter of fact, he resembled old Abe, but was young of course. Maybe the way Lincoln looked when he was splitting them rails. Or running for Congress and getting his butt licked, back in Illinois.
"I am going to give it to you straight, Horn," he finally decided, "and short."
He fixed me with the bright, keen eyes.
"This trial has dug far too deep into the whole business of 'rustler control' by the wealthy stockmen, both here and in Colorado," he said. "The 'people' of the two areas are simply up in arms against the big ranches and rich ranchers. Cattlemen reaching right up into the governor's office, both states, and on to the Senate of the United States are going to be brought into this thing if Tom Horn talks. Now do you understand me, Horn?"
"Some yes and some no," I answered.
"I can say it a little plainer."
"I'm a plain man, lawyer."
"Aha, and I as well," nodded A. W. Rowells. "Both sides want you dead. Is that plain enough?"
I put aside the hackamore of horsehair I had kept busy braiding the whole time we talked.
"Damn it, lawyer," I complained, "you made me drop a loop."
A. W. Rowells barked his little laugh again.
He was a shy sort, but put a firm-quick hand to my shoulder. "Horn," he said, "I will help you."
It doesn't make sense, but I felt better from that one promise than all the bluster blowed up by Lacey and Burke, et al, in their year of lawyering for me.
"You want to start that help right now?" I asked him.
"If I can."
"One last question then: Was you me, lawyer, would you commence about now to ponder on other routes and riding trails away from Cheyenne Jail?"
The keen eyes pounced on me. A. W. Rowells took a long breath, thinking. Then the lean head bobbed.
"You are asking me the question only?"
"Yes. I'll find my own horse."
"Very well," said A. W. Rowells. "Here is my best advice: find him."
Jail Break
I had to have a way to communicate with my friends outside. It was lawyer Rowells told me how to do it. A short time later, a young boy, a local kid, got himself arrested for stealing a saddle. The judge give him thirty days in Cheyenne Jail. He was the "messenger."
My plot was this:
I would write my busting-out plan on pieces of toilet paper. Then I would scroll the paper into tiny rolls and drop them in the kid's cell on my way past it every day at my exercise time in the cellblock aisle. Everything went smooth. The kid had my plan for my friends to get me out all complete and nobody of the jail crew wise to it. It was a beaut.
Giant powder, five sticks of it, would be got down in Colorado. By night my friends would dig it under the jail wall. It would be fused and set to blow when I gave the final sign. At that time, the friends would have put in the alley of the jail a seamless bag. In the bag would be what I would need when out: pair of winter mittens; winter cap with earguards; overcoat, with the pockets carrying extra ammunition for the six-gun that would be wrapped in a rag, no belt nor holster for it; a horse with no brand to be left hitched at a rack I would name on the last piece of toilet paper, the animal saddled and the saddlebags containing my usual cheese and rye bread, with slab of bacon; and an extra pair of my old shoes from the ranch to be in with the food. All of the friends doing any of the work around the jail to wear socks over their boots to leave no firm prints.
When the friends had all this ready for me, they were to leave a snowball in the window of Saint John's Hall across the street from the jail. The first night of the day he saw the snowball "old Tom" would light a match to his cigarette in front of the exercise aisle window at exactly 6:30 p.m. When his friends saw that match blaze, they were to recheck everything. The next night I would light a second cigarette the same place and time, and that would be it. That night the wall would blow.
January ran out, the kid's sentence with it.
He was out and still no break of my plan; in forty-eight hours I would be on that unbranded horse, riding in winter darkness, "armed and dangerous." There could be no stopping Tom Horn then. The kid had only to do his last job, deliver a letter to John Coble from me that would fuse the break. He would also turn over all toilet paper scrolls to Coble. Then he would be given his money and helped to lay low until the giant powder smoke cleared.
But the next thing I knew of my giant powder plan was when I heard it being hawked by the paper boys down on Ferguson Street. EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it! TOM HORN PLANS TO BLOW UP CHEYENNE JAIL!!! And I just stood there in the cellblock aisle staring across at the window of Saint John's Hall where now the snowball would never get placed.
The kid had lost his nerve. He had got to thinking he would be found out, and he took my letter to Coble and all my toilet paper notes of the plan up to the Wyoming Tribune and traded them for a railroad ticket out of town and twenty dollars cash.
Now I was in it over my hocks.
Sheriff Ed Smalley tightened up everything at the jail so a cockroach couldn't have got out of the cellblock, or a strange flea into it. Moreover, lawyer Rowells informed me that, due to the breakout plotting, the feeling outside had turned against me even more. We had forseen this, but it was worse than we figured.
I had to get out now.
July fourth, I was caught with a lead pipe taped to my leg under my pants. I meant to knock over our block guard with it and just scramble after that. Again, on July 16, they found me with a second piece of pipe. I won't tell yet where the pipes come from. But they made little difference, as Ed Smalley never let word of them out of the jail. He was a very young man and under lots of heavy pressure from the papers and the damn people.
He came into my cell one night early in August and said to me, "Tom, for your own sake, quit this business of breaking out. The whole town is getting ugly. People want to rush the place. If they do, I can't hold them out. This jail is a joke and you know it. You also know what they will do with you, should they get in here."
"Yes, Eddie," I said, "and I likewise am familiar with what you will do with me, if they don'
t."
"That's not it," he protested, in his straight, sober way. "You still have a chance to get off by legal means or maneuver. Each time you try a break, you damage those chances. Now I am asking you to think it over."
"Eddie," I said, "you have treated me decent. But you know I ain't any chance in the world to get out of this jailhouse alive now by lawful sanction. My own lawyer, A. W. Rowells, tells me so."
"You would do better, Tom, to heed Judge Lacey and Mr. Burke. This Rowells seems a murky sort to me. You been nothing but trouble since he came on your case."
"Yes, he tells the truth. That's always trouble."
"Tom, what do Lacey and Burke tell you?"
"Oh, they say I will be the next governor of the sovereign state of Wyoming, Eddie. All I need do is trust them and wait."
He went away not pleased.
Two nights later he came back to tell me he was having a time with Kels Nickell running around making lynch talk. He really was getting people worked up to crack Smalley's "crowbar hotel" and take me out of it.
"Eddie, I will tell you how to handle Kels Nickell," I advised him. "You inform him, next time he starts rousering the rabble, that if he don't abate it, you will throw him in the same cell with Tom Horn."
I thought nothing of it, but the third night on his rounds Sheriff Smalley stopped at my cell and said, "Tom, your recipe was a dandy. I told Kels what you said and I thought he was going to have a blood-clot stroke. I never saw a man turn that white. He hasn't peeped since."
"He's a reason," I said, and Smalley went on.
The ninth of August, 1903, the heat was thick in the jail. It was a Sunday and outside it was quiet, save for where the carny things were setting up for the Frontier Days. They had a damn calliope organ out at the grounds I could hear from nine a.m. to midnight. But it was good to have the rodeo going. It made a fine side draw for me; I was going that day to bring off the great jailbreak, at last.